Hi! I know it was said but no one noticed it, the AI thinks that every city has the same value what is wrong, I love Forgotten faction and I just play them (yeah haha) I always win by supremacy even if I'm with bad score, less military power, less tech,etc... I just go for a capital, take it and then set a truce, peace and alliance with that faction and forget about them until I do that to all the adversaries, AI doesn't take care their capitals over other cities and it makes easy conquest them even more cause they don't try to recover them, just keep going with their game like if nothing happened, AI should put more priority on defend/recover capitals cities.

codekiddy wrote:
I was spying on AI's city for entry game and noticed the AI started to build cryiometric monitor, but in the mean time they conquered a city from another AI which *probably* already contains that building, and since then the AI was not able to finish the construction since cryionic monitor is limited to one copy in empire. and thus the city was "blocked" for the entry game. I suppose the same would happen for other buildings which are limited to 1 copy.

Production on the next item in the list should continue though, even if there's a building at the top of the queue with 'infinity' for the time taken. You make a good point though: it would makes sense to cancel it to reclaim the strategic resources.

wilbefast wrote:
Production on the next item in the list should continue though, even if there's a building at the top of the queue with 'infinity' for the time taken. You make a good point though: it would makes sense to cancel it to reclaim the strategic resources.

Oh, yes willbefast, you're correct about the item below in the queue, but I saw the same city producing nothing but cryonic monitor during a game play several times. other times the AI adds something to the queue.

I might be wrong, IDK, maybe a closer look should give more info for possible fix.

codekiddy wrote:
Oh, yes willbefast, you're correct about the item below in the queue, but I saw the same city producing nothing but cryonic monitor during a game play several times. other times the AI adds something to the queue.

I might be wrong, IDK, maybe a closer look should give more info for possible fix.

Hmm... yes the AI will avoid queuing things at all so as to not spend strategic resources before it needs to (unlike the player in can keep a perfect queue in its "brain" until it needs to insert the next item into the game). I can see how this mechanism could theoretically causes issue (if the item at the top of the queue is blocked), but I do think we have safe-guards against this. I not 100% sure though, so I will check.

I see this thread was started way back in May. I am new to the game but I do see a few patches since then and even the Shadows expansion. But after a few games I quickly see the AI needs some improvement still. There are further patches to it planned right? The game has been out for over year. Sometimes game companies consider a game done after this time. Hopefully the AI is not considered done yet. Thanks.

MrChoke wrote:
I see this thread was started way back in May. I am new to the game but I do see a few patches since then and even the Shadows expansion. But after a few games I quickly see the AI needs some improvement still. There are further patches to it planned right? The game has been out for over year. Sometimes game companies consider a game done after this time. Hopefully the AI is not considered one yet. Thanks.

Well they did say they were working on, among other things, AI personalities so that AIs play more in line with their faction strengths. No recent updates though. Maybe they are hitting walls that will take time to overcome. AI is tricky...

Originally Posted by MrChoke

I see this thread was started way back in May. I am new to the game but I do see a few patches since then and even the Shadows expansion. But after a few games I quickly see the AI needs some improvement still. There are further patches to it planned right? The game has been out for over year. Sometimes game companies consider a game done after this time. Hopefully the AI is not considered one yet. Thanks.

They don't give out estimated dates for releases, (or details on the releases) until about a week away.



So, unfortunately, we don't know what will be released or when it will be released.

MrChoke wrote:
I see this thread was started way back in May. I am new to the game but I do see a few patches since then and even the Shadows expansion. But after a few games I quickly see the AI needs some improvement still. There are further patches to it planned right? The game has been out for over year. Sometimes game companies consider a game done after this time. Hopefully the AI is not considered done yet. Thanks.

We're working on the AI at the moment, but we'd like to play our cards a bit close to our chests: you do hit walls in AI every now and then, and sometimes you break things or make things worse in certain circumstances. So we are treading very lightly and being careful not to make promises. Another AI update is planned though.

wilbefast wrote:
We're working on the AI at the moment, but we'd like to play our cards a bit close to our chests: you do hit walls in AI every now and then, and sometimes you break things or make things worse in certain circumstances. So we are treading very lightly and being careful not to make promises. Another AI update is planned though.

Maintaining/improving AI must be a pretty massive undertaking, and especially so post-release. I have to wonder; is the Endless Legend AI similar enough to the Endless Space one that work done on one will be useful for the other?

ZenTractor wrote:
Maintaining/improving AI must be a pretty massive undertaking, and especially so post-release. I have to wonder; is the Endless Legend AI similar enough to the Endless Space one that work done on one will be useful for the other?

There are things that have been requested in this thread that the current architecture doesn't really support, however much tweaking were to be done. And since we'd like these these to work in ES2 we're essentially going to go back to formula for the new AI (remembering of course the lessons learned). This is a good thing for the players (that new AI smell) but a lot of work for us ^^ Wish us luck.



We are using EL as a test-bed for some techniques we're considering for ES2 though.

wilbefast wrote:
We're working on the AI at the moment, but we'd like to play our cards a bit close to our chests: you do hit walls in AI every now and then, and sometimes you break things or make things worse in certain circumstances. So we are treading very lightly and being careful not to make promises. Another AI update is planned though.

Ok thanks. Since this this thread is for improvement suggestions, the one thing I can suggest so far is the AI needs to pursue the active victory conditions better, even if it goes against the victory condition most suited to the race. For example, the Vaulters need to attack and pursue a supremacy victory if that is the only active one, even though Science is their usual path to victory. Right now, I see them sit idle waiting to be attacked before they "wake up".

wilbefast wrote:
We're working on the AI at the moment, but we'd like to play our cards a bit close to our chests: you do hit walls in AI every now and then, and sometimes you break things or make things worse in certain circumstances. So we are treading very lightly and being careful not to make promises. Another AI update is planned though.

Any chance of a rough ETA? 1 month? 2 months? a year?

MrChoke wrote:
Ok thanks. Since this this thread is for improvement suggestions, the one thing I can suggest so far is the AI needs to pursue the active victory conditions better, even if it goes against the victory condition most suited to the race. For example, the Vaulters need to attack and pursue a supremacy victory if that is the only active one, even though Science is their usual path to victory. Right now, I see them sit idle waiting to be attacked before they "wake up".

I'd be curious to see what strategic state this Vaulter AI is in - you wouldn't happen to have a save game on you? From before you attacked them preferable. It may well be that they consider you to be too strong an adversary to attack. I'm curious. We'd like to try to do something about this issue in particular, but the pursuit of victories is one of the things EL's AI architecture is not very good at. It's a democracy, not a totalitarian government: it makes decisions based on a system of compromises rather than based on the bloody-minded pursuit of a goal. Again this is something we'll be looking into for ES2.

Necrophages - Turn 303.zip

wilbefast wrote:
I'd be curious to see what strategic state this Vaulter AI is in - you wouldn't happen to have a save game on you? From before you attacked them preferable. It may well be that they consider you to be too strong an adversary to attack. I'm curious. We'd like to try to do something about this issue in particular, but the pursuit of victories is one of the things EL's AI architecture is not very good at. It's a democracy, not a totalitarian government: it makes decisions based on a system of compromises rather than based on the bloody-minded pursuit of a goal. Again this is something we'll be looking into for ES2.

Yes, I have one. It's turn 303. It is attached. Thanks!

MrChoke wrote:
Necrophages - Turn 303.zip



Yes, I have one. It's turn 303. It is attached. Thanks!

Very interesting. Very very interesting...



Were the scientific victory active the AI would be well on its way to winning it - at this point in the game I don't think there's any way you could stop it. And is it there is no way you can stop it anyway I don't think: it has three times your military power. Because of this it does want to declare war on you and take your Northern region Hailoman. Several things are stopping it: a large part of its military force is tied up in Rouster trying to pacify Haunts: there is a village garrisoned with 11 units, and the AI wants Haunts, because +5% to its already massive research production would be a huge gain. Even without this it will have Serum of Iteru in 11 turns and this will effectively double its military power.



What I'm a bit less proud of: the AI does tend to struggle with naval logistics, so this is slowing it down and confusing it somewhat in its attempts to synchronise its armies. It has fewer regions than its nemesis (the Necrophages) so it wants to expand first just to be safe (this is its current primary objective). The AI will generally play it safe if it is way ahead in terms of overall score. It can generally afford to be complacent in such cases. Unlike a human the AI doesn't get bored at attack just to "get it over with" - maybe it should? Maybe it should finish you off.



Other than this there are some flaws in its choices which we are working towards fixing, but on the whole it is playing well -if not in a very exciting manner- and my money would be on it I'm afraid.



This is perhaps more a design issue: that the game does not always come naturally to a satisfactorily climatic close. We've been thinking about this issue for ES2, though it may be a bit late at this point to change how the end-game functions in EL.

@wilbefast



Thanks for the reply! I will admit, I had no idea on what it may be doing behind the fog of war. All I saw was, he not attacking me but also not attacking the Ardent Mages (the other active AI, sitting at two regions and no armies most of the game, another topic perhaps...). I don't necessarily want a climatic close. But I had waited until turn 340 for him to make his move and he never did. Oh well, I look forward to this AI patch. I hope it comes soon.

Disclaimer: I'm a newbie. I've got something like ten games of EL under my belt. I bought Guardians after a handful of games, but I don't have Shadows at the moment. I'm still going to make a bunch of suggestions, though. They're mostly about the AI feeling quite passive when it comes to diplomacy. With some exceptions, it's up to the player to do all the work.



1) Have AI empires research imperial highways after the tier 2 weapons/armour and meritocratic promotion. Diplomat's manse should get a look-in too. The AI is determined to get the fortification/militia techs and I think I understand why: the AI gets boosts to FIDS at least, and it doesn't feel the need to research public libraries for beakers or imperial highways for dust. Anything that improves their military score is probably considered the number one priority. Unfortunately, the AI doesn't know how dull that is. I also feel miffed because in order to get the basic, mutually beneficial trade routes, I have to trade them Imperial Highways, usually to my disadvantage.



2) Empires with weak military power/research/commerce could propose peace and commerce/research treaties of their own free will. Empires that are worse off should probably not race back to cold war when the honeymoon's over; you don't want your necromage neighbour to create yet another battleborn army, guys. Trust me on this. Cold war is not safe if you move your armies outside your territory!



3) Have warring AIs bribe neighbouring empires to join in wars. At the moment, the only time you get multi-empire battles is when an opportunist jumps into the fray.



4) Regardless of whether #3's possible or acceptable, could the game please tell us if an AI declares war on another AI? It'd be nice. It's useful info because it's alerting me to a possible land-grab. It's also good flavour. If people don't like it, they're free to turn off the notification from the options.

wilbefast wrote:
This is perhaps more a design issue: that the game does not always come naturally to a satisfactorily climatic close. We've been thinking about this issue for ES2, though it may be a bit late at this point to change how the end-game functions in EL.

This next paragraph is just in case Amplitude considers having a 100% guaranteed scripted brawl happen at the end of the game.



I was going to bring up Shogun 2, but it might not be a legitimate example as it's not a 4x, so let's go with a game of vanilla Civ V. Those AIs had a diplomatic malus with the player that increased per turn, so that war was inevitable. If I remember right, the idea was to always have a dramatic clash in the end game. The trouble was that until you found out what was going on, you'd see long-time allies turn on you for no apparent reason. Now, if AIs turn on their former allies because they have 3/5 science victory techs, or they're building the game-winning wonder, well, maybe there's a case for the backstab. But I don't think even that would be very satisfying, as it disregards diplomacy up to that point. Is the ability to set up a non-violent win such a terrible thing? Either way, I'd rather mash "next turn" waiting for the wonder to be built than go back to Civ V's insane AI leaders.

Stinky wrote:
This next paragraph is just in case Amplitude considers having a 100% guaranteed scripted brawl happen at the end of the game.



I was going to bring up Shogun 2, but it might not be a legitimate example as it's not a 4x, so let's go with a game of vanilla Civ V. Those AIs had a diplomatic malus with the player that increased per turn, so that war was inevitable. If I remember right, the idea was to always have a dramatic clash in the end game. The trouble was that until you found out what was going on, you'd see long-time allies turn on you for no apparent reason. Now, if AIs turn on their former allies because they have 3/5 science victory techs, or they're building the game-winning wonder, well, maybe there's a case for the backstab. But I don't think even that would be very satisfying, as it disregards diplomacy up to that point. Is the ability to set up a non-violent win such a terrible thing? Either way, I'd rather mash "next turn" waiting for the wonder to be built than go back to Civ V's insane AI leaders.

First, I'm not sure why Total War: Shogun 2 isn't a 4x. I'm sure there's some vague reason somewhere.



Second, you are simultaneously asking for a less passive AI and an AI that passively lets you win because you think you should have a smooth, non-violent victory once you get to a certain level of progress down a victory path near the end game. I don't think you can have both.



One of the problems with the AI is exactly that it isn't compelled to act to stop other players from winning when the end game nears because it's not aware of the flow of the game. AoW 3 does exactly the opposite and the AI there is much more effective and believable. The difference being that the AI tends to directly tell the player why its moving against him/her wrt to nearing victory conditions. "Hey...you're nearly done breaking all the seals. We can't have you rule the world. We're going to stop you!" is feedback that he player can understand. That's missing from a lot of 4x games.

Ideally, the AI would be aggressive in its pursuit and / or denial of victory, but the player would still be able to thwart the AI in non-violent ways such as diplomacy and / or manipulation (which should get progressively harder).



It is of course a delicate balance, but I find it preferable to an AI that becomes obsessed with denying victory to the point of suicide or beyond every other concern. It is of course a game, but I find it more immersive if an AI acts closer to what a civilization or polity would act in similar situations. The key is to make it progressively harder to keep them out of the way peacefully.

I´ve always wondered (on my throne on top of the 0 knowledge I have on the subject) why not write this one module that´s dependent on difficulty level and which controls the AI´s decision to deny Victory Conditions, making it progressively more aware and reactive. I have a feeling that´s kind of what everyone expects out of difficulty levels.